Any tips for helping myself to stop panicking while playing?

[Agery]

Hello. I've been playing Touhou games since 2008 (slowed down and lost interest in the official games themselves around 2013 or so but have been getting back into the pre-UFO ones as of late) and I have this problem where if I get to the end of a run or a part I've never cleared before (Imperishable Night's Extra Mode is the most recent one I've been struggling with as of late) I start to panic and make mistakes very quickly in a short period of time, which causes me to get frustrated and make *more* mistakes. It's one of the reasons I had to stop playing PCB in 2012 since I choked on Yukari's final spell card and lost at the literal last second and makes me think I'm both doing something wrong and getting worse at these games. I don't think I've gotten a 1cc in a shmup past Mountain of Faith or so and I want to improve, but constantly making these mistakes in gameplay or perceiving a death/mistake as "Wait, how did that hit me?!" is getting me down. I've seen a couple of replay videos showing tips or "Hey, do this to make this attack pattern more bearable" but in the heat of the moment I tend to forget the tips on more difficult stages.

Any general tips or ideas? Much appreciated. (I apologize if I sound rambling, I'm not good at writing things like this down).

[nintendonut888]

I have been playing since 2007, and I still don't have a firm answer to give you on how nerves work. I think everyone has their own way of handling pressure, but it can be just as dangerous as the patterns if you let it get to you. For me at least, my regular way of handling nerves is to try not caring too much about the results of a run. If you improve, and keep trying, then eventually the result you want will come to you. Thinking too much about the run at hand will just distract you from what you need to be doing in that moment. Or so I tell myself at least, until I screw up and then it becomes a struggle to recover.

As hokey as it sounds though, this is the kind of thing you have to figure out for yourself. Think of it like martial arts: Cultivating a state of mind is just as, if not more important than raw technique.

[Agery]

As hokey as it sounds though, this is the kind of thing you have to figure out for yourself. Think of it like martial arts: Cultivating a state of mind is just as, if not more important than raw technique.

Yeah, that makes sense. 

[Sena]

Learning what areas you generally struggle with is definitely useful, but one thing I've actually found to be useful is to give myself a short break (1 minute is more than enough) to regain my composure once the dialogue comes up. I've never 1CC'd a game past normal if you want an idea of my skill level, but the one time where I just seem to be doing really well and getting a lot further than I normally do, I usually let the adrenaline get to me and mash Z on the dialogue because I'm too psyched up to bother reading anything, but I've found that actually stopping for a bit is a lot more helpful in retaining focus than I would otherwise expect.

[Agery]

So learning to practice on what I'm the worst at playing tends to help, but it's when I get to a pattern I'm not familiar with that it tends to screw me. Taking breaks in between sounds like a good idea, to be honest. I'll have to try that.